Friday, July 29, 2011

What are two of my favorite activities in a MMO? Correct! By fight, I mean against other players. It takes a real good story for me to care about beating down some helpless NPC's. Prime: Battle for Dominus looks to be focusing on those two activities, which sounds good to me.

Last week, we learned a bit about how resources are collected in Prime. Resource locations are tracked down using a scanning system and harvesters are planted. You can then return later and collect your materials. Sounds like it will enhance PvP and not get in the way of it.

That last part is important. I am a fan of crafting in Warhammer Online for the same reason. Cultivation and Salvaging do not take me out of the fight. I can grow seeds as a fight and I can break down equipment obtained from fighting. Then there is Butchering... which requires you to kill npc's for materials. I have a 200 character, but I never use him because grinding NPC's is not fun for me.

Anyway, back to Prime. I think they may have something similar to Butchering, we'll see. So long as there are other professions which do not take time away from PvP I won't mind.

Pitchblack also recently released some detailed information about crafting. Overall, the whole thing sounds great. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out in practice. I really like that the quality of raw materials is a factor in how well the item turns out. Of course, it may turn out to be a tiered system, and not discrete values like we saw in Star Wars Galaxies.

If it turns out there are only a few quality grades, I'll be much less excited about the system. Experimentation is another feature they are touting. WAR had that as well if you remember. Eventually though, it is just a recipe system. It will be fun to start out with though.

Prime seems to be concentrating on two of my favorite aspects of MMO's, so I am starting to get more interested. It still has a ways to go, but the potential seems to be there.